Trenton Generals drop extra-inning affair with South Jersey

WEST WINDSOR — The Trenton Generals couldn’t string together enough hits to get past the South Jersey Giants on Thursday as they enter the home stretch of the regular season, falling, 5-1, in extra innings.

Even with the loss, the Generals (22-10) still own the best record in the ACBL and a three-game lead in the Kaiser Division. But the win total masks issues at the plate.

Entering Thursday’s contest, the Generals were third to last in the league in total hits and last in total doubles. Part of that can be explained by playing the cavernous Mercer County Community College field, which boasts a center field 400 feet from home plate, a 370-foot left field and a right field of 368 feet. Generals manager Jim Maher concedes the park is not for the offensively inclined.

“This is not a hitter’s park by any stretch, but you have to adjust, you have to hit line drives and hard grounders,” Maher said. “(Today) we were hitting weak grounders and pop-ups. We had some hits early, but we had too many bad at-bats.”

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The Generals managed one run off of eight scattered hits during the course of 10 innings.

They got their lone run in the bottom of the fourth when third baseman Andy Lopez scored off a sacrifice fly from Luke Westerberg. That was in response to South Jersey’s one-run double the previous inning.

Trenton played to its strengths for most of the game, with starter Adam Schrek allowing one run off three hits while striking out four and walking three through seven innings.

“This is two weeks in a row where Schrek has pitched well, but we’ve given him no run support,” Maher said.

The stalemate came to an end in the top of the 10th.

Generals closer Andrew Cohen struck out one and gave up a single to Brian Almond to open the inning. Cohen tried to pick off Nicholas Tierno at first when Tierno took off for second base. Tierno found himself caught in a rundown, which he escaped after the Generals’ second baseman missed the throw to first basemen Brandon Kirk, letting Tierno go to second. Cohen gave up another single and walked a batter to load the bases.

“It happens,” Maher said. “We don’t really work on those because we don’t have that much time to practice, so those things show up, and to be honest we haven’t had that happen all year. We should have had two out and no one on base.”

Then the Giants’ Shaine Hughes, a Monmouth infielder, hit a bases-clearing triple to bust the game open. Greene came home after TCNJ’s Anthony Cocuzza hit a sac fly to make it 5-1. After the game, Maher was more disappointed in the lack of hitting than the pitching implosion or the rundown snafu.

“Yeah, we didn’t pitch well in the 10th, but you have to score more than one run through nine innings,” he said. “It’s been our Achilles’ heel all year.”